Value from the Scrum Course

I wanted to reiterate views I think I have expressed elsewhere.

My best guess is that a typical development team in North America of seven or eight, including the Product Owner and the ScrumMaster, costs about $1 million per year, including all related costs. (In my opinion, every team should know their total annual cost.)

My best guess is that a typical Development Team can produce about $3 million per year in Net Present Value. Based on what they develop — for example, their share of the “earnings” from the product. This is discounted over the 3 to 5 year typical time horizon. (In my opinion, every team should be given an estimate of this 3:1 ratio, and some data after the fact, of the value of the work they will be doing, say, over a year. This concentrates their minds wonderfully.)

From a business value viewpoint, the goal of the Scrum course is to significantly increase the productivity of each team. So, let’s assume the whole team comes to the Scrum course, as well as some related managers. Let’s assume the team can double their productivity (their velocity) within one year. Let’s assume in years two and three they don’t improve at all (too negative, but for now), but they don’t get worse either. So, going from a NPV of $3 million per year to $6 million per year is not a stretch.

Let’s say there are other costs/factors that also contribute to the doubling (coaches, impediments removals, etc.), so the Scrum course, which teaches three teams, only gets 25 percent of the added value. 25 percent of $9 million is $2.25 million. (Does the scrum course deserve more or less than 25 percent? You judge.)

Now, get out your spreadsheet and calculate the value for yourself, with your own assumptions. See XLS file here. Let me add, there are many other benefits, but let’s ignore those for now.

By the way, a decent team (not a great team) in Jeff Sutherland’s opinion should be able to double velocity in six months. Many do in six weeks. Some companies are seeing 5 to 8 times more improvement for every team and it happens quickly. (Other companies take 2 to 3 years to get over five times improvement.)

A couple more things to say:

1. The purpose of the course is not to convey explicit knowledge, although that happens. The key purpose is to get the people willing, wanting and waiting to change. “It’s the tacit knowledge, stupid.” (To play with a political quote from the past century.) Without this change, that happens somewhere in the brain, no worthy improvement will take place.
2. The team must be having fun. I won’t explain that more here.
3. The team must be working reasonable hours (40 or less in total).
4. Thus, the way to velocity improvement is by impediment removal. (Not by working more hours at all!)
5. And, managers must be helping with some impediments (and letting the team self-organize) or the full amount of improvement won’t happen.
6. Finally, this is not a silver bullet. Teams can be dysfunctional and projects can still be impossible. (The good news is that these serious problems can be identified much sooner.)

Now, our challenge to you. Have you achieved a measurable and believable increase in your own baseline velocity? How much?

You owe it to yourself, your teammates, your company, your customers and right now to the world economy to get your team going. You can do it. If you feel you can’t change your organization, first, believe in yourself. “The culture” can resist one or two people. It cannot resist a fired up group that is right.

Still, if you can’t change your organization, then you must change your organization. And then double the velocity in that new organization. You will be proud of yourself when you do it. You know you can. We know you can; we cheer you on.

Doubling is not enough. Like 12 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean, it’s a good start.

 

 

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